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Games to let me live out my Blade Runner fantasies

Can anyone recommend me games that are reminiscent of the Blade Runner film? Gritty, detective style, or just set in or around a dystopian scifi megacity. Steampunk cities would work too I guess, since they have that smoggy dystopian feel going on. Kind of a vague request but should turn up a slew of interesting games.

Dishonoured sounds like it might fit the bill very nicely and I've yet to play it.

Gemini Rue was brilliant and I loved that one.

Dreamfall: The Longest Journey *kinda* fits the bill, albeit the scifi supercity you find yourself in is more utopian than anything. The game before it, The Longest Journey fit the bill nicely though.

In dreamfall you return to Venice and it is really shitty place. It was kinda sad.

on topic:
Have you consider Anachronox
we also have tex murphy games
what about Deus Ex?
Judge Dredd game on Gog: apparently fairly good
what about Primordia It is more post apocalyptic tough
Syndicate maybe>

If you're willing to read, I'd recommend Chasm City by Alistair Reynolds. It's a sci-fi book but a lot of it reads like a noir detective novel.

Because there's not a great deal of Blade Runner-esque games I'm having to resort to games with similar themes, so the dystopian scifi cities of Bioshock and Dishonoured sound like good stand-ins. Fallout is good as well since a lot of the settlements remind me of the market scene in Blade Runner, all dirty and human and rundown with futuristic offerings. Kind of vague but hey ho :( Ideally I'd want something similar to Gemini Rue.

That book does sound exactly to my tastes and I'll see if I can't find a copy of it online off Amazon or Ebay, so thank you for that.

Originally Posted by Lukasz

In dreamfall you return to Venice and it is really shitty place. It was kinda sad.

on topic:
Have you consider Anachronox
we also have tex murphy games
what about Deus Ex?
Judge Dredd game on Gog: apparently fairly good
what about Primordia It is more post apocalyptic tough
Syndicate maybe>

just throwing names...

Aha, I love that Judge Dredd game. Dredd Vs Death? It's awesome, the setting is amazing. More Judge Dredd games would be brilliant because Megacity 1 is incredibly reminiscent of Blade Runner.

Because there's not a great deal of Blade Runner-esque games I'm having to resort to games with similar themes, so the dystopian scifi cities of Bioshock and Dishonoured sound like good stand-ins. Fallout is good as well since a lot of the settlements remind me of the market scene in Blade Runner, all dirty and human and rundown with futuristic offerings. Kind of vague but hey ho :( Ideally I'd want something similar to Gemini Rue.

Bioshock: You never really interact with characters, it's all about a rush through a linear environment - so I don't think it'll scratch your itch.
Dishonored has a similar issue and Fallout 3 just 'feels' cartoony to me. New Vegas is probably more what you're looking for and if you're willing to go back, 1 and 2 definitely.

Syndicate (the FPS) certainly has that vibe as well, though it's all shooter.

I'd probably say keep an eye out for Watchdogs and Remember me in 2013 and of course CDProjekt are working on Cyberpunk 2077, though that's not due out until 2014/15. Although given Mike Pondsmith is heavily involved and given this is his shtick for Cyberpunk 2020 the P&P RPG: -

"For over two decades, the Megacorporations have ruled the world from their starscraper towers, enforcing that control with armies of cyborg assassins. While the boostergangs roamed a shattered urban wilderness, the endless party went on 24-7 in the hottest clubs, sleaziest bars and meanest streets this side of the Postholocaust.

"But that was before the Crash; before the dark days of 203X. Now the battlefield belongs to the new Lords of the Street: the DNA-shape shifting Reefers vs the full-body cyborgs of Corpore Metal, Desnai's robo-enhanced mechajocks against the monster makers of Riptide, the nano-boosted road warriors of Rolling State against the cybertech megaweapons of the urban Edgerunners."

"So get ready to hit Streets of the Dark Future, a world so dangerous, so dark, that only the toughest, smartest and most cybered-up will survive. But you can deal with it. Because you're ready. Because you're Cyberpunk."

I wouldn't expect much in the way of plot beyond the juvenile 'The corporations are bad, because they're the corporations and you're going to bring them down...man' whilst some leather clad augmented sex vixen hands you a Katana and a disposable shotgun.

Watch Ghost in the Shell SAC seasons 1 and 2 and then the movie "Solid State Society"....oh and play Deus Ex: HR. Syndicate fits too but the Bloom in-game might blind you. I advise wearing shades for that first.

The games I would have suggested are already in the list, but you should also make sure you read Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? by Philip K. Dick (the novel on which Blade Runner is based) and put http://perturbator.bandcamp.com/ on repeat.

Also, get a trench coat go drive some foggy downtown core at night with that music.

Watch Ghost in the Shell SAC seasons 1 and 2 and then the movie "Solid State Society"....oh and play Deus Ex: HR. Syndicate fits too but the Bloom in-game might blind you. I advise wearing shades for that first.

Both theatrical movies, GitS and GitS Innocence, are more Noir than the TV series and the made-for-DVD movie.

NalanoH. Wildmoon
Director of the Friends of Nalano PAC
Attorney at Lawl
"His lack of education is more than compensated for by his keenly developed moral bankruptcy." - Woody Allen

Both theatrical movies, GitS and GitS Innocence, are more Noir than the TV series and the made-for-DVD movie.

They're also far better.

If you're willing to consider Bioshock you might also like System Shock 1 and 2. Both are great Cyberpunk games, though they're not set in an actual city. Plus, finding an affordable copy of them isn't the easiest thing to do these days. Mirror's Edge has some Cyberpunk elements as well, but is far more colourful than most examples of the genre. There's also Hard Reset, which I've never played but heard some good things about. And if you care more about the Noir aspects of Blade Runner rather than its dystopian future elements, you could give the excellent Grim Fandango a try.

In general, Cyberpunk seems to be a very under-used setting. And most games who actually use it are shooters which feature Cyberpunk scenery, but never really let you interact with it.